5.3 PTR Patch Notes are live!

The 5.3 PTR patch notes are already here and a lot of interesting changes are coming.

Some of the highlights include:

4 New Scenarios, and a brand new heroic difficulty for Scenarios

A new Battleground - Gold Rush located in Valley of the Four Winds.

Loot Specialization - you can now pick which spec you receive loot for (helpful for gearing offsets!)

Bonus Rolls now have a proection from bad luck streaks, each roll gets a progressively higher chance at loot.

Blizzard

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 5.3

General

Please note: During the 5.3 PTR, not all the content listed may not be available for testing or may only be available during a limited testing window. Keep an eye on our PTR Discussion forum for details.New Battleground: Gold Rush

In the new Battleground situated in the Valley of the Four Winds, the Alliance and Horde continue their war for Pandaria’s precious resources. While the two factions battle for control over mines, they must also protect their own resources from being stolen and turned against them!

New Arena: Shado-Pan

Gladiator hopefuls have a new location to test their mettle amidst the Kun-Lai mountain tops, in the training grounds of the powerful Shado-Pan. Players must make use of the looming tiger statues and fenced platforms to gain an advantage that will bring victory and glory!

New Scenario: Battle on the High Seas

Help your faction fend off enemy forces in the midst of a battle for naval supremacy on the High Seas.

New Scenario: Blood in the Snow

An agent of Zandalar has infiltrated Dun Morogh and rallied the Frostmane trolls. At Varian’s request, Moira will lead her personal guard against them once the king’s champions have stopped the magical storm protecting Shimmer Ridge.

New Scenario: Dark Heart of Pandaria

Goblin engineers have been excavating in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to find a mysterious artifact, but all they've found is trouble; you have been personally called upon by the Warchief to aid them in their hour of need.

New Scenario: The Secrets of Emberdeep

Infiltrate the Emberdeep Caverns and assist the Gob Squad in investigating a recent disappearance in Durotar.

Heroic Scenarios

A heroic difficulty for Scenarios have been added and are designed to provide challenging content for small groups of well-seasoned adventurers. Completing a Heroic Scenario awards Valor points, and a chance to obtain Raid Finder quality items.

Quests

Creatures

Spiritfire Beam no longer increases in damage with each jump, deals a flat 200,000 damage(up from 150,000 damage), and jumps to 99 targets (up from 20 targets).

Pet Battles

Dueling for Pet Battles are now available in all dungeons and raids. Enjoy!

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

Loot Specialization

Players can now choose to receive loot for a specialization that's different from their current class role. This feature could be accessed by right-clicking on the character portrait and selecting the option from the drop-down list. Loot specialization is available for bonus rolls, Raid Finder, and Pandarian quest rewards.

Raids

Bonus Roll

Protection for bad luck streaks have been added to bonus rolls. Each bonus roll that does not provide loot has a progressively better chance to award loot to the player.

For the Fathom-Lord Karathress encounter, Cataclysmic Bolt now deals 10% of the target's maximum health plus 500 damage, down from 50% of target's maximum health, the stun effect is now a Stun mechanic, and can target any player instead of only characters with mana.

PvP

A blog with additional information and explanation for the reasoning behind PvP changes will be available very soon.

All characters now have a base Resilience of 65%.

Resilience has been removed from most PvP gear.

Season 13 Tyrannical gear had their item levels increased to ilevel 496, up from ilevel 493.

Season 13 Tyrannical Elite gear had their item levels decreased to ilevel 496, down from ilevel 512.

Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arenas now have an ilevel cap. All gear will be scaled down to ilevel 496.

Battlegrounds

More information coming soon.

Professions

Herbalists of low skill can now pick herbs in Pandaria for a small amount of usable material. The yield an herbalist will be able to harvest from each node is determined by skill level.

Miners of low skill can now mine mineral deposits in Pandaria for a small amount of usable material. The yield a miner will be able to harvest from each node is determined by skill level.

Items

The Voidbinders are back in capital cities and shrines.

PvE Item Upgrades

Items upgradable by Valor now require 250 Valor to upgrade per 4 item levels, for a total of 500 Valor for 8 item levels per item. This is retroactive to all items that use Valor.

Items upgradable by Justice now require 750 Justice to upgrade per 8 item levels, for a total of 750 Justice for 8 item levels per item. This is retroactive to all items that use Justice.

PvP Item Upgrades

Malevolent Gladiator’s Conquest (Season 12) items that have upgrades available are still upgradable at their original costs.

Dreadful Gladiator’s Honor (Season 12) items that have upgrades available are still upgradable at their original costs.

No other PvP items are upgradable.

Unclaimed Black Market Containers are now available on the Black Market Auction House. What's inside? It's a mystery! When opened, the container has a chance to contain any item that can be available on the BMAH.

Courageous Primal Diamond had its clearcasting effect renamed to “Lucidity” to differentiate it from other spells with that name.

Comments

Comment by Rankkor

on 2013-03-23T08:16:18-05:00

I've seen no reason to do Scenarios. They offer little loot, little reward, their slower then Dungeons and I still get a repair bill.. Seriously Blizz if thats a direction your choosing then you need a reward structure. So the addition of other Scenarios does nothing for me, would have loved some new Dungeons but I have a feeling that Blizz is killing Dungeons to favor Scenarios/LFR.

I don't know what game you're playing, but I can get through 2-3 scenarios before finishing one dungeon(including queue times). Plus I've received more loot through scenarios than I have in dungeons. MUCH faster

Don't forget that dungeons reward now a reasonable enough amount of JP to favor them over scenarios.

which is completely pointless since Justice gear SUCKS. I mean really, ilvl 458?

Seriously, last night I was thinking about the Ice trolls in Dun Morogh and what would happen with the events currently happening. All the scenarios sound great-colour me interested! The gathering professions are silly though-why can't people just level up in EK or Kalimdor? Is it really that hard to grind low-level herbs/nodes for maybe less than hour?

Looking at CRZ....... I'd say yes.

Not in EK/Kalimdor maybe, but ohhh yes on Outland.

Comment by Flitzy

on 2013-03-23T08:36:46-05:00

Why come with a new patch this early, have just got in 5.2

I hope u will make sure it takes some time be4 ya will come with the patch.

They said 5.3 would be out sooner then you think because it's just a story patch - like 5.1. =)

Comment by baradiel

on 2013-03-23T08:50:05-05:00

Why come with a new patch this early, have just got in 5.2

I hope u will make sure it takes some time be4 ya will come with the patch.

They said 5.3 would be out sooner then you think because it's just a story patch - like 5.1. =)

Also, it's not like is going to be out now because they need to test everything.

It will take like 2-3 months...

Comment by Spectrezh

on 2013-03-23T10:28:39-05:00

I hope this is an April Fool's joke. it is getting close. If it isn't than perhaps Blizzard has more patches in store for this xpac than any other xpac in WoW history :D

Comment by murphmanfa

on 2013-03-23T10:55:22-05:00

I hope this is an April Fool's joke. it is getting close. If it isn't than perhaps Blizzard has more patches in store for this xpac than any other xpac in WoW history :D

But the thing is that they're not huge content patches like there's been in the past. We're not seeing raids every major patch like we saw in Wrath and most of BC. If there's more patches, then they're going to be a lot of lore and plotline, which I am totally happy with since I've found the stories in MoP to be fascinating. I mean, we'll still be seeing raids more or less every six months or so, with questing content bridging the gap between each tier, and I really like the pacing of it.

Comment by Neffi

on 2013-03-23T11:19:21-05:00

I hope this is an April Fool's joke. it is getting close. If it isn't than perhaps Blizzard has more patches in store for this xpac than any other xpac in WoW history :D

A few weeks ago a Blue mentioned that 5.3 would come a lot sooner than anyone expects, and that it would not contain any new major content. Instead, 5.4 would bring the next major update to the story and PvE. They seemed to be implying that 5.3 was primarily a patch for architectural changes, like what you're seeing in the PvP section.

This is far beyond what I expected, but I knew that some fundamental architectural changes were destined to happen within the timespan of this xpac. With class balance becoming such a large endeavor nowadays, and with the game stretching its age this far, some philosophical changes to the design were bound to come soon.

It makes sense from a development standpoint. If your interest is maintaining the longevity of the game, both from a subscription standpoint and a playability/enjoyment standpoint, you have to make fundamental changes to the class continuum every now and then. Historically, expansion releases have been a place to do that, but WoW is getting to the age that just a talent/spell revamp isn't giving us the wealth of changes needed to keep the game on the right track. It's better to use major patch-points as incremental grounds to introduce more of these changes, so that the following 2-3 patches give them plenty of time to mature and further develop, and the next xpac could be that much better from the get-go, instead of suffering from a fizzled release that's bound to happen once you release enough expansions.

A blog with additional information and explanation for the reasoning behind PvP changes will be available very soon.All characters now have a base Resilience of 65%.Resilience has been removed from most PvP gear.Season 13 Tyrannical gear had their item levels increased to ilevel 496, up from ilevel 493.Season 13 Tyrannical Elite gear had their item levels decreased to ilevel 496, down from ilevel 512.Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arenas now have an ilevel cap. All gear will be scaled down to ilevel 496.

I want to go through these real quick, because I've hit every forum looking for some interesting feedback to this, and it's all the same: people overreacting so much that they seem to have lost their reading comprehension. This is NOT the end of PvP progression; this does NOT mean PvE gear will return, even for healers; this does NOT mean doing arenas are pointless, or any of the other nonsense that people are panicking about.

If resilience is gone from most PvP gear, that implies some gear will still have it -- giving headroom for further PvP seasons to come out without simply ballooning PvP Power (as some have suggested). All players will sit at the resilience of somebody in roughly full malevolent from the get-go, so that means much better survivability for undergeared players. This eases entry into PvP, and should make BGs MUCH more playable than they are today. It won't affect RBGs or arenas largely, because you still want to be geared for them; you need the extra base stats along with PvP power to be competitive in rated play.

Placing an ilvl cap of 496 on PvP gear, along with the fact that PvP power is notably not removed, will give us an even larger disconnect between PvE and PvP gear. If no PvE gear is higher in ilvl than the best PvP gear, and if you recall that PvP Power does not contribute to the ilvl (it's a "free" stat), then in terms of stat budget, PvP gear is still unquestionably better at PvP. An ilvl 496 piece from PvE or PvP should contribute the same amount of intellect for instance, but the PvP piece will have the upshot of also contributing PvP Power, so healers won't find themselves donning PvE gear just because intellect is better than Power -- they'll have ample intellect anyway. The cap ensures that this will stay true. You simply won't be able to get a piece of gear that has so much int that you want it in PvP: it will scale down.

Architecturally, we need to see more of the changes to know the full impact this will really have. Looking at what we have, the situation really is not any different than today, except for two instances: entry to PvP, and open-world play. Having the free base resilience means that you won't get blown up in one global for being undergeared, whether you're trying to PvP in fresh quest gear, or in your raid gear, but it won't make getting PvP gear any less important; you'll still the high PvP power to curve past resilience and be able to pump out any appreciable damage/healing. It really just puts an end to being able to global new PvPers. I find that's a positive change; in a competitive landscape, the well geared player already has the upshot of added experience in that season, why give them the upshot of also being able to global somebody who's already behind them in that regard? Anyone who likes to level alts to 90, or has ever found themselves playing catch-up mid season should LOVE this change. Anyone else, should see no major difference, other than not being able to global new 90s without even trying.

You all should be waiting out on all those More information coming soon tags before panicking about balance. I'm sure you guys will find ample reason to do so when you see the class changes in store for us.

Comment by Zuji

on 2013-03-23T15:33:24-05:00

Another patch - and still it's the end of the W(oW). Been playing for more than six years now, and it's always the same knee-jerk reaction by a vociferous minority of the player base. You'd think in a game played by young people they'd be embracing change, instead I sometimes get the feeling to be playing along a bunch of cranky old men.

Comment by deathbyte

on 2013-03-23T15:47:43-05:00

To me it seems like this patch will hit soon, as in no more than 2 months. BUT the patch after won't be for a while. It looks like patch 5.3 is more of a major hotfix, that can't actually be just hotfixed.

Comment by Meldoron

on 2013-03-23T19:39:27-05:00

I like and dislike the base resilience change. On one hand, pve players can actually participate in pvp without being severely gimped since pvp players have a lot more of an easier time doing pve since the only change is ilvl and hit chance. On the other, I feel like 65% isn't enough for 90 and way too much for low levels.

PVE players get decimated in pvp because they die easily and their damage can't compare since pvp power is so... well, powerful. The change will help with them not dying as fast, but their damage will still be on the low side as it should be. People complaining about that should ask a BM hunter to burst them in pvp gear and then pve gear of higher ilvl, the pvp gear will easily outmatch the pve gear since pvp power gives a far better damage boost than some increased stats.

At low levels, this really will make healers immortal. I can survive against almost an entire team on my low level healers; this just makes that a lot easier. As for 90, burst is already a huge issue and having a base resil means that as gear increases, burst will become even more of an issue than it already is since resil can't go up to counter it.

I feel that base resil should be at 60% and the resil on gear now should scale less, AND I feel that resil should reduce healing taken (scaled at a far less rate). After all, if we need to increase the max resil people get to reduce burst then it's only right to make it so classes that can heal, aren't overwhelmingly stronger. I mostly play destro lock in pvp nowadays and I think I could use a nerf to my healing in pvp since 120k on demand heal is ridiculous. That would also help fix healers at low levels, too (I hope, being op just isn't fun forever).

That's my thoughts on it.

Comment by Neffi

on 2013-03-23T19:57:54-05:00

I feel like 65% isn't enough for 90 and way too much for low levels.

Once you've got the numbers in place, the rest is just a matter of tuning (changing coefficients, toning down PvP Power, etc). 65% is pretty close to full Malevolent gear, and the notes specifically say "most" items are losing resilience. They can really set damage to be wherever they want it to be.

PVE players

PvE gear should never be in PvP. That was the point of adding PvP Power in the first place. If you want to PvP, you're expected to gear up. What this will help (along with things like mid-season catch-up also coming in 5.3) is easing players into gearing. When you need to run tons of BGs to farm the honor for Malevolent gear, you no longer have to suffer through countless deaths.

At low levels, this really will make healers immortal. I can survive against almost an entire team on my low level healers; this just makes that a lot easier.

Low levels have NEVER been in a good-place balance-wise. The developers don't try to tune low levels for PvP. They tune low levels for leveling.

As for 90, burst is already a huge issue and having a base resil means that as gear increases, burst will become even more of an issue than it already is since resil can't go up to counter it.

"Most". Resilience can certainly go up. Lots of other things can also certainly happen. Read the whole post, but only the whole post. Way too many people are reading between the lines and coming out with conclusions that just are not there.

I feel that base resil should be at 60% and the resil on gear now should scale less, AND I feel that resil should reduce healing taken (scaled at a far less rate). After all, if we need to increase the max resil people get to reduce burst then it's only right to make it so classes that can heal, aren't overwhelmingly stronger. I mostly play destro lock in pvp nowadays and I think I could use a nerf to my healing in pvp since 120k on demand heal is ridiculous. That would also help fix healers at low levels, too (I hope, being op just isn't fun forever).

That's my thoughts on it.

I feel like this is absolutely the wrong way to look at it. Besides, they've already stated clearly that healing is currently overtuned because burst is overproportioned. Their goal is to tone down burst incrementally (rather than do sweeping changes that could disturb balance more), and then tune down healing.

Comment by Meldoron

on 2013-03-23T20:12:31-05:00

Yes, I know it said most and I take that as resil may still be present in set bonuses and in gems, but even if you add those in, 70% resil isn't enough and pvp power will still scale way too fast for the resil to compensate even if people stack resil in gems. Taking away most gear resil is already a dramatic change so why not make it dramatic in another way? At this point, it is worth taking risks. This is why we have a PTR, to have us test it out; if it doesn't work then try something else.

I trust blizzard to solve burst and to tune healing accordingly. I just wanted to throw out some ideas to see what people thought.

Comment by Azrile

on 2013-03-23T22:27:06-05:00

Its good they hay reduced the mana cost of buffs, because they were ooming me every time :(

This is actually a nice quality of life improvement for people doing LFD/LFR. I know it sounds silly, but there are times I entered a LFD as a tank while questing as a cat. The LFD pops, I enter, change specs, and then can´t cast Mark or else can´t turn into a bear. Obviously the better solution would be to allow people to keep more mana when changing specs.. but meh. And seriously, this happens frequently and it is compounded when you cast Mark, can´t shift into bear form and the dps have already started pulling.

Comment by Azrile

on 2013-03-23T22:30:07-05:00

I've seen no reason to do Scenarios. They offer little loot, little reward, their slower then Dungeons and I still get a repair bill..

If scenarios are slower than dungeons for you... I just don't know what to say. Wow, I guess.

My daily Scenario usually goes as such:

Queue for about 1 minute, pop. (Opposed to a heroic taking at least 15min on a good day)

Enter, quick buff, and immediately start because Scenarios are super-easy. (Dungeons move entirely at a pace set by the tank)

So yeah! I kinda love doing my daily Scenario, especially now that it gives 50 Valor! Dungeons are longer, tedious, require more people to not be airheads or selfish, and don't tell a story as well (except for the first-time quests). Heroic Scenarios kinda worry me, but only because I really don't want to have to rely on the competence of the other 2 players.

Oh, and as for the new Scenarios, you had me at "Gob Squad"!

A blog with additional information and explanation for the reasoning behind PvP changes will be available very soon.

At least they knew they were going to be causing some turmoil with those crazy PvP changes!

As a bear tank doing LFD.. I will agree that scenerios (even if i change specs to cat) are slower than most dungeons now. I can do almost every dungeon in under 12 minutes, some down to 9. There are a lot of sceneros that are longer. As a geared tank, I dictate the pace of the dungeons and dps just tags along. Doing scenerios.. I have had times where I was guarding the beer cauldren, and watched 2 dps return 1 beer at a time... or have dps pull every pat in Theramore.

Comment by Tuckletuts

on 2013-03-23T23:46:18-05:00

As a bear tank doing LFD.. I will agree that scenarios (even if i change specs to cat) are slower than most dungeons now. I can do almost every dungeon in under 12 minutes, some down to 9. There are a lot of scenarios that are longer. As a geared tank, I dictate the pace of the dungeons and dps just tags along. Doing scenarios.. I have had times where I was guarding the beer cauldron, and watched 2 dps return 1 beer at a time... or have dps pull every pat in Theramore.

This is essentially part of the reason I hate scenarios. Sure, for DPS the instant-queue might be nice, and certainly I've had geared groups clear some of them in a matter of minutes, but they don't have the same feel as a dungeon. For starters there's no coordination at all, and most of the time no one even bothers to talk. It's just a case of, run in, kill stuff, leave.

For Tanks and Healers, who get instant dungeon queues anyway most of the time, queuing for a scenario is painful. Gearing alts for multiple specs is painful, and by the 3rd level 90 I just refused to do any faction dailies, so it was basically a case of "yes, my tanking gear is awesome, but I contribute nothing". Healing is even less fun...

That said, I've never been a big fan of scenarios, they just seemed so useless. And as people have pointed out, other than being a time filler for dps while they wait for a dungeon, they have very little purpose. Raiders are VP capped by Wednesday night anyway, so the 50 VP does nothing. They also probably don't need to bonus rep. For those gearing up, it can be unbelievably tedious. Nothing like a 40 minute "Little Patience" only to be given my 1st 463 from a satchel, and it's something I don't need... I imagine the heroic scenarios are going to be in a similar vein.

I realise the patch notes are early, and it seems to be focused on PvP (yet another useless aspect of the game) and casual play. Hopefully Blizz realises that players that have nothing to do get very bored. I ran out of game time this week, but since I'd already capped on 2 characters and done my LFR it hasn't felt like I'm missing out on anything.

Let's see some new 5 mans already. Not re-vamped old dungeons, but new ones, with new content and new lore. And this time, don't scale the gear in them so well. If LFR drops 502, let the new dungeons drop 489. It's still significantly better loot than they had, but not to the point that they outgear previous tier raiders... Isle of Thunder and Isle of Giants were the perfect set-ups for at least 2 new 5 man dungeons.

Comment by Rainemard

on 2013-03-24T11:16:52-05:00

Sure, for DPS the instant-queue might be nice, and certainly I've had geared groups clear some of them in a matter of minutes For Tanks and Healers, who get instant dungeon queues anyway most of the time, queuing for a scenario is painful.

I'm totally okay with that. Tanks and Healers can queue for their fast-popping & sometimes I get a bonus just for being me... dungeons. I'll stick to Scenarios, thanks. Seems like a nice balance, actually... and hey, if Satchel Scanner ever pops for me while on my DPS classes... well i'll be sure to queue asap. =)

And as people have pointed out, other than being a time filler for dps while they wait for a dungeon, they have very little purpose. Raiders are VP capped by Wednesday night anyway, so the 50 VP does nothing. They also probably don't need to bonus rep.

Funny thing, this argument works entirely the same way when looking at dungeons being a time-filler for dps while they wait for LFR. WoW is coming closer to reaching the point of "just because a feature is in the game, doesn't mean you have to participate in it. As you say, Scenarios are just another option for gearing up & getting VP.

I can't help but think of FFXI's endgame. At the time I quit, there were at least 6 different endgame activities, all of which were serious raid-like time commitments, and they were all necessary as they'd each drop gear useful for some aspect of your job (class).

PvP (yet another useless aspect of the game)

Whatever serious argument you had just went out the window. And yes, you're right. The patch notes are early.

Comment by PhantomScourge

on 2013-03-24T14:09:07-05:00

Do we have heirloom shields yet?

Comment by Rocheku

on 2013-03-24T15:38:23-05:00

People please, stop being ignorant. PvP gear is still gonna be important because you will still want the PvP Power. Making resilience baseline will make it easier for people to step into PvP without being roflstomped, you will simply do less damage if you dont have any pvp gear.

What Blizzard is doing is moving towards PvP being more about skill and less about gear. Wich is exactly how it should be.

PS: Like they said before, they want a smaller patch roughly every 2 months, and a new raid instance every 4 months.

Comment by leaponover

on 2013-03-24T23:08:21-05:00

I hate scenarios too...so boring. Turns into maneuvering around trash to get to the end as soon as possible. Dying if you don't have anybody who can heal, and just all around boring. The kicker, gold as a reward, maybe a 463 useless item, or the very RARE chance at 476 loot which is a joke now anyway. I hate scenarios!

As far as being VP capped though, I never am able to cap without huge effort and lots of time spent. That's with three toons of course. If I only played one it would be no problem. I refuse to dailies and the new ones are too incredibly time consuming to even bother. VP capping is near impossible for me. They have to go back to Cata and gives us better VP points for rewards. I just can't stomach more scenarios...dungeons would have been acceptable though. This is my first real upgrade to the game since I started during Cata and at this point I'm happy with the content, just not the way I am being forced to do scenarios or old dungeons MANY MANY times just to cap VP. I can't stomach it anymore....

Comment by Rankkor

on 2013-03-24T23:41:40-05:00

As far as being VP capped though, I never am able to cap without huge effort and lots of time spent.

Now this is just not true. 50 vp for the first scenario of the day, 80 for the first heroic of the day, right there you have 130 VP for investing about 90 minutes per day. Do this for 7 days and you get 910 VP, after which all you'd have to do is either 2 more heroics and 1 scenario, or 1 LFR wing and 1 scenario and presto. VP capped. You can cap a lot faster if you farm the rare mobs on the new island of thunder (which have shared loot regardless of who pulled first) and earn 15 VP per kill, which considering they respawn every 40 minutes, means you can easily gain over 80 VP per hour if you get them all.

So yeah, "Huge effort and time spent" my ass.

Comment by lankybrit

on 2013-03-24T23:55:43-05:00

Herbalism and Mining catch-up is about the dumbest idea Blizzard have ever come up with.